He threw open a door leading into an outer room of the splendid Hunt Club Kennel, and gave the word of command.
There was a rush, and the entire pack burst through the wide entrance. Then every dog lay suddenly down, and began with great vigor to lick his feet.
Why? Simply because in rushing through that door they had waded through a wide, shallow trough or sink of pretty warm soup. This basin was sunk in the stone floor, and reached entirely across the door, and was too wide to jump over, even had it been visible from the outside, which it was not.
The dogs had plunged into it before they knew it was there, and were instantly out of its rather uncomfortable heat.
Each dog worked at his feet with vigor. He was hungry. The soup was good; but dogs object to soup on their feet. This process was continued and repeated until it was thought that all thorns and briers and pebbles had been licked and picked from the crippled feet. Then the dogs were fed and put to bed—or allowed to lie down and sleep—in their fresh straw-filled bunks.
"A doctor and a surgeon may be the same person," remarked the philosophical trainer, oracularly, "but they seldom are. If you whine—as the dogs do when their feet hurt after a hunt—or if you limp or complain, a doctor guesses what is the matter with you. Then he guesses what will cure you. If both guesses are right, you are in luck, and he is a skilful diagnostician. In nine cases out of ten he is giving you something harmless, while he is taking a second and a third look at you (at your expense, of course) to guess over after himself."
His medical pessimism and his surgical optimism amused and entertained me, and I encouraged him to go on.
"Now with a surgeon it is different. Surgery is an exact science. Before I took this position I was a surgeon's assistant in a hospital. In some places we are called trained nurses. In our place we were called surgeons' assistants. That's why I make such a distinction between doctors and surgeons. I've seen the two work side by side so long. I've seen some of the funniest mistakes made, and I've seen mistakes that were not funny. I've seen post-mortem examinations that would have made a surgeon ashamed that he had ever been born, looked upon by the doctor who treated the case as not at all strange; didn't stagger him a bit in his own opinion of himself and his scientific knowledge next time. I remember one case. It was a Japanese boy. He was as solid as a little ox, but he told Dr. G——— that he'd been taking a homoeopathic prescription for a cold. That was enough for Dr. G———. A red rag in the van of a bovine animal is nothing to the word 'homoeopathy' to Dr. G———. Hydropathy gives him fits, and eclecticism almost, lays him out. Not long ago he sat on a jury which sent to prison a man who had failed in a case of 'mind cure.' That gave deep delight to his 'regular' soul. Well, Dr. G——— questioned the little Jap, who could not speak good English, and had the national inclination to agree with whatever you say. Ever been in Japan? No? Well, they are a droll lot. Always strive to agree with all you say or suggest.
"'Did you ever spit blood?' asked Dr. G———, by-and-by, after he could find nothing else wrong except the little cold for which the homoeopathic physician was treating the boy.
"'Once,' replied that youthful victim.